What is Optimism?

Optimism is a layer 2 chain, meaning it functions on top of Ethereum mainnet (layer 1). Transactions take place on Optimism, but the data about transactions get posted to mainnet where they are validated. It’s like driving in a less crowded side street while benefiting from the security of a highway.

Optimism bridges:

The optimism native bridge is a pretty simple experience like swapping on any DEX. You connect your wallet, select the token, and hit deposit.

In addition to the native bridge, Optimism boasts an expansive ecosystem of bridges. Although Layer-2 networks have “native bridges”, the process to move tokens from one scaling solution to another or even back to the Ethereum base layer via these bridges is slow and can often take up to a week to exit your tokens to Ethereum L1. One of the popular bridges is the Hop Protocol. Hop is the quickest way to bridge ETH and other tokens to Optimism from different networks.

Questions:

Describe activity across Optimism bridges.

• Where are assets coming from?
• Where are they going?
• How are they used?
• How does activity on custom bridges compare to the standard Optimism bridge?

References:

These three charts show the number of transactions, the number of unique users, and the volume of transactions that were transferred by the native bridge for each asset from Ethereum to Optimism.

As you can see, ETH is the most popular asset to transfer in terms of both the number of transactions and the number of unique users.

So that the rest of the assets are very small compared to it. The above two charts clearly show the dominance of ETH over other assets.

But the story change in terms of volume. You can’t see the dominance of ETH in the left chart.

The left chart shows us, totally the number of bridge transactions from Ethereum to Optimism made by the native bridge is much more than the Hop protocol.

The right chart shows us the daily number of transactions made by each bridge. As you can see, the number of transactions decreased in 2022 than in 2021. but the number of uses of the Hop protocol increased in 2022 than in 2021.

These three charts show the number of transactions, the number of unique users, and the volume of transactions that were transferred by the Hop bridge for each asset from Ethereum to Optimism.

As you can see, ETH is the most popular asset to transfer in terms of both the number of transactions and the number of unique users.

So that the rest of the assets are very small compared to it. The above two charts clearly show the dominance of ETH over other assets.

But the story change in terms of volume. You can’t see the dominance of ETH in the left chart.

Comparing some metrics between Optimism native bridge and Hop protocol:

Methodology:

The first step to answer this question is finding transactions related to bridge to Optimism. I only consider transactions bridged from Ethereum to optimism by native Optimism bridge and Hop protocol.

The following conditions help me to find bridge by optimism native bridge:

• Tokens must transfer to 0x99c9fc46f92e8a1c0dec1b1747d010903e884be1 so origin_to_address = '0x99c9fc46f92e8a1c0dec1b1747d010903e884be1'

  Since both ETH and other tokens could transfer by this bridge so I should use both ethereum.core.ez_eth_transfers and ethereum.core.ez_token_transfers tables.

The following conditions help me to find bridge by Hop protocol:

• event_inputs:chainId = '10'
• contract_address in ('0xb8901acb165ed027e32754e0ffe830802919727f', '0x3666f603cc164936c1b87e207f36beba4ac5f18a', '0x3e4a3a4796d16c0cd582c382691998f7c06420b6', '0x3d4cc8a61c7528fd86c55cfe061a78dcba48edd1', '0x22b1cbb8d98a01a3b71d034bb899775a76eb1cc2')
• tx_status = 'SUCCESS'

Both of the above charts show the dominance of ETH over other assets. 91% of bridge transactions were related to ETH transfers. The rest of the assets are far from ETH.

Both of the above charts show the dominance of ETH over other assets. 81% of bridge transactions were related to ETH transfers. The second place belongs to USDC with 12.5% of bridge transactions.

Activities done by bridgers just after bridging:

Assets transferred by each bridge:

The left chart shows us, totally the number of wallet whose used native bridge to transfer their assets from Ethereum to Optimism is much more than those who used Hop protocol.

The right chart shows us the daily number of unique users used each bridge. As you can see, the number of unique bridger decreased in 2022 than in 2021. but the number of uses of the Hop protocol increased in 2022 than in 2021 exactly same as number of bridge transactions.

The left chart shows us, most of the volume was bridged by the native bridge over time. Even with the increase in the number of recent transactions and users of Hope, there is no increase in the volume of this protocol.

The right chart shows us the daily volume transferred by each bridge. As you can see total daily volume increased in 2022 than in 2021. Also, we can spike between Aug 1st and 7th.

The left chart shows us the average volume of transactions that are transferred by the native bridge is around ~$10 K while this amount for Hop is ~$6 k.

Among all metrics of this part, the average volume of transactions is the only metric that the difference between the native bridge and Hop protocol on it is low.

The right chart shows us the daily average volume transferred by each bridge. As you can see this amount increased for native bridge and decreased for the Hop protocol over time.

Destinations of bridger from Ethereum to Optimism just after bridging:

Conclusion:

• Totally, the number of bridge transactions, number of unique bridgers, and volume of bridge transactions made by the native bridge are much more than the Hop protocol.

• The asset that transferred from Ethereum to Optimism by native bridge more than other assets is ETH based on count and USDC based on volume.

  The asset that transferred from Ethereum to Optimism by Hop protocol more than other assets is ETH based on both count and volume.

  Assets transferred in both bridge show the dominance of ETH over other assets in terms of the number of transactions and the number of unique users that made transactions. But the interesting point is that there isn’t any ETH dominance over other assets in terms of the volume of transactions in both bridges.

• Transferring is the most popular activity that users do just after entering to Optimism network from Ethereum by both the native bridge and Hop bridge. The second one is Approval.

• The most frequent destination for native bride is optimism:airdrop. This means most people that transferred their assets by this bridge, used this contract in the first transactions after entering to network. the second one is uniswap v3.

• The most frequent destination for Hop bridge is uniswap v3. This means most people that transferred their assets by this bridge, used this contract in the first transactions after entering to network. the second one is Hop protocol (maybe they will use it again to get out of the network :grinning:).

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Above charts show the cumulative volume of ETH that was transferred was more than other assets until Aug 8th. After this date USDC overtook ETH. The rest of the assets are far from these two.

Although there is no dominance of ETH in the volume chart transferred by the Hop protocol, it still has the largest volume among other assets. 57% of all volume is related to ETH transferring and 30% is related to USDC transferring.

In this part, I found the first transactions of each user after entering Optimism by native bridge and Hop protocol. Then tried to find their activity. I categorize activity type by event_name column.

As you can see, most of the transactions were transfer. It doesn't matter that with native bridge or Hop protocol.

The next popular transaction is Approval. This doens’t matter with native bridge or Hop protocol too.

The third one is Deposit.

In this part, I found the first transactions of each user after entering Optimism by native bridge and Hop protocol. Then tried to find their destination by helping label table. I categorize destinations by origin_to_address column.

In the above charts, you can see the contracts with which the most interaction has been done after entering the network through each of the bridges.

• The most frequent destination for native bride is optimism:airdrop. This means most people transferred their assets by this bridge, used this contract in the first transactions after entering to network.

  The next most frequent destination is uniswap v3.

• The most frequent destination for Hop bridge is uniswap v3. This means most people transferred their assets by this bridge, used this contract in the first transactions after entering to network.

  The next most frequent destination is Hop protocol. This is an interesting point. The Hop protocol itself is one of the contracts used in the first transactions after joining the network for those who came from Ethereum to Optimism using the Hop protocol.

  I have two ideas to explain this:

  • One is that the Optimism network was used as an intermediate network to transfer to the main network.
  • One is that the wallets have done this bridge to include Optimism and the Hope protocol AirDrops.